The Brussels Dilemma: what should I do with my unwanted ticket?

Buyer’s remorse comes in many forms. My current regret arose from sheer carelessness when booking a flight. And after spending an hour in two separate conversations with the British Airways call centre in South Africa (the first was inexplicably terminated 30 minutes in), I am left with The Brussels Dilemma.

This philosophical quandary is nothing to do with deciding whether to include a diminutive spherical vegetable with Christmas dinner. Instead, it involves the merits (or otherwise) of gaming the situation to limit the damage caused by the errant purchase of a flight ticket.

The background: as you know, a strike by members of the PCS union working for UK Border Force begins on Friday 23 December at six airports: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Glasgow, Birmingham and Cardiff. I wanted to be able to assess the effects first hand. So I came up with a cunning plan to fly into Heathrow – the busiest airport in the UK – on the first European arrival on Friday morning.

British Airways flight BA389 is due to arrive from Brussels at 6.55am, by which time I predict any problems at passport control will have become apparent: around 50 long-haul flights are scheduled to touch down at Heathrow before that.

So I searched online at ba.com for the first departure from the Belgian capital on 23 December, and was glad to see availability at €108 (£94) one way. Or so I thought. I cheerfully clicked through and paid for the ticket. Only on Monday, when I went online to check that all was tickety-boo, did I discover that the airline’s system had diverted me to a day earlier.

I had booked a flight that I didn’t want and didn’t need. How did I get it wrong by 24 hours? I replicated the booking process to find out. I discovered that after you click for a Brussels-London flight on 23 December, the flights offered are for the day before.

Ahead of the strike, BA had taken all arrivals at Heathrow on the affected days off sale.

I failed when buying to spot the small print reading: “We don’t fly that route on the dates you’ve chosen. Instead we’re showing you flights on other dates that you might find suitable.”

Mea culpa. I should have checked every detail carefully before hitting the “buy now” button.

The dilemma is: what do I do now, barely 24 hours before the flight is due to depart?

Cancelling will trigger a 25 per cent…